ABERDEEN, Md. — The crash in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 28, 2023 came after Acting Corporal James Haddix had just left his home in Newark, Delaware bound for the Aberdeen Police Department.
“I looked up and seen headlights on the berm on my side of the road, and said, ‘What is this guy doing?’” recalled Haddix, “and then seconds later, the headlights weren’t on the side of the road anymore. They were in front of me so I heard a loud bang.”
Haddix blacked out upon impact and came out of it to find himself trapped in the wreckage of his unmarked police car.
“I remember hearing somebody say, ‘Hey, I think this one’s dead’,” said Haddix, “Inside, I’m like, ‘No. No. This guy’s not dead. Don’t give up.”
Five surgeries including a knee reconstruction and the removal of glass shards from one of his eyes would follow.
His wife, Emily, had to leave her job as an EMT to care for her husband and their six children.
“His second surgery, he crashed and they had to incubate him and just watching him with the tubes and just him struggling so hard to be here, I was doubtful,” his wife told us.
In the aftermath of the crash, one of Haddix’s doctors told him he’d probably never be able to return to work, but if he could somehow, it would probably take at least four years.
After enduring grueling physical therapy five days a week, it actually took him about 17 months, but there initially were moments of doubt.
“Starting out in a wheelchair, it was probably one of the hardest things for someone as active as I am,” said Haddix, “So there were times that I wanted to give up. I wanted to just say, ‘The heck with it.’ Just be done.”
Failure really wasn’t an option.
Haddix lost his own father when he was just seven years old in another accident involving a drunk driver.
It was, in large part, why he became a police officer.
“I decided I didn’t want any son to grow up without a father,” he explained.
And that’s why his first day back at the police station is so important to him—-to spread a message of the perils of drinking and driving, from someone who has had to overcome so much.
“Hey, if you’re going to have a couple of drinks, have somebody take you home,” he reminds us, “It’ll save everybody a lot of trouble.”
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